Story Behind the Haunting: The Allen House Suicide

"A constant companion of her mother her first thought was always of her." ("Mrs. Ladell A. Bonner," Advance Monticellonian, January 6, 1949.)

December 26, 1948

Ladell was soaking in steamy water in the six-foot tub in the master bathroom and had not felt this good, been this happy in weeks, maybe months. No, she decided. Years. Yes, years. She had not felt this good in years. Not even her sagging fifty-four-year-old flesh depressed her. Soon she would be free of it. Free. She felt so good she didn't even need a drink, and that was saying a lot because she had not lain in this tub sober in years.

That morning, at services at the First Presbyterian Church, Reverend Williams had talked of the promises of the coming new year, how everyone should evaluate his or her life and make resolutions to perform good acts for others, improve one's self, to let old conflicts die and to remember throughout the bleakness of January and February that March would bring new life.

Her birthday was in March, always a day or two into spring. She would be fifty-five. "Double nickels," Papa said. "I'll be double nickels next fall," he said at his last birthday party in September 1917. But then he died the next month. And the thought of Papa's slack, sightless face staring up at the cherubs in the dining-room ceiling as mourners filed past almost made her lose her happiness of the moment, but she pushed it away. No double nickels for me either, Papa. And she was buoyed by the thought, by her plan. So much better than the first plan. That disaster at Thanksgiving. A cold, rainy day. Her heart wasn't in it. She had tied a leather belt around the high clothes bar in her closet, but it had not been high enough. Her toes touched the floor, and when she tried to swing her whole body free, her toes kept returning to the floor, and her neck would not snap. She merely choked.